You probably aren't missing anything. I brought up the same point that when you increase the monster level (like to 'insane') it actually makes the game even easier because of the experience increase that comes with it. On the flip side, it's fairly time consuming to gain experience against AI armies (and some variations of monsters, like skeletons,) but not necessarily more difficult in the long run.

Right now, if you want "real" difficulty you need to avoid tactical battles entirely and just let the game resolve every conflict. The challenge definitely feels like it was built around that mechanic.

Yeah, there definitely comes a point where I've pretty obviously won and it's just a question of how I want to finish. It's to the game's credit that I still have fun. The monsters and quests are a lot more challenging than the AI, so generally I entertain myself getting a dragon, or maybe taking on the quest victory.

As I've said on half a dozen occasions, the AI needs work. It's too easy to roll over AIs after the early game. Two or three battles and it's pretty much over.  I'm really hoping that they'll take some time to improve the AI. Building better heroes would help. Assembling stacks better would help. Writing a "defensive" AI (when you're in its borders) would help. Taking available goodies and outposts would help.

The Fog Of War thread suggests it's making some pretty bad errors with how it runs its cities as well, which is particularly important at the start, and I would hope could be fixed fairly easily.

Speaking as a programmer myself I'm aware this stuff isn't easy. You can make a change and things get worse because of an unexpected side-effect. Empire: Total War famously was released with AI which was "paralysed by indecision". But as a one player game we are dependent on a decent AI to provide a rewarding challenge, and if the game is selling well enough I really hope they take the time to improve it.

One thing that might help the Devs is for you to put up a save game where you have played awhile and are winning and they can take a look at the strategy you are using and then make adjustments from that.  

another thing you could do is make units for every faction so they have more unit choice to use against you. If you don't play a faction it hampers them, since every unit you make for a faction has a chance to be used when the ai plays that faction.

Posts like these make me chuckle...

I noticed in the scenario.. that the friendly and enemy AI sent troops at yah all the time.. aka the allies were constantly ATTACKING the enemies.. and I'm not quite sure I understood exactly what that weird "castle" was above your 1st city..?

How hard would it be to put a setting in to have the AI's launch attacks.. make you "defend"?  

I have to say when the game fails to "create a challenge" for me.. I invent my own And the turning off of monsters and quests (whatever I did in the settings) has helped a lot.. my game got like x3 harder.. might have been a lot easier if I had just taken the "beast master" perk but without it.. it's been semi-hell.. I'm 50 turns in.. only like level 6/level 7 only have 2 heroes and..

I didn't know that even turning it off that there are still "monster zones" and random quests and that's too bad cause if they weren't there.. I would focus on only attacking the AI cities/kingdoms/empires.. but I've spent 90% of my game fighting in those monsters zones.. winning tough battles/gaining experience.. I suspect when all is said and done.. I have elite units capable of ripping to shreds any of the AI's..

Spamming the hell out of the save/load mana/money/fame creator (which is a bit sad? a bit) but a viable/usable cheat.. I'm only 8 saves/turns away from getting a 3rd hero finally (erog's tower costs like 2041 gold to "rush" so yah know )

Why did they design the game to give you new mana/money on every load.. do I have a outdated copy?

Yes, as I said.. I've abandoned 2 of my games as well.. and I've only played umm.. now 4 games.. (1 was scenario) and god the SCENARIO was borring.. somewhere about 10-20 hours in.. it just became hella boring.. and the only game I've won so far was the scenario.. I just decided to rush through it.. only took me like 5-7 mage casts to win that tower.. I dunno if that's average..? but the tower was pretty weak too

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What I will say again about my current game is that the AI for the towns etc. is "passive" as usual.. maybe 1 time they tried to "declare war?" one thing I remember about civilization 4 or 5 is some people programmed the AI to always kind of attack you.. certain ones.. like the japs or something? They'd be aggressive as I remember? And there are aggressive races/kingdoms in the game.. there just "not that" aggressive..

I mean man if that yithril guy declared war on turn 20 or 10 or 30.. and brought out those maulers.. then that would be 1 tough game..

My play style is pretty simple.. I'm a save and loader.. not a lot of people necessarily have patience for that.. but in that way.. I always/usually get the best outcome in any battle.. and I know many/some people play like me in civilization/king's bounty etc.

I was thinking recently what the game really needs is true AI.. not fake

The game is too easy.  Mainly because there are a lot of utterly overpowered abilities which exist in this game.  A player can easily take advantage of them, but the AI cannot.  And the AI seems to run around like a headless chicken most of the game, rarely attacking the player.

 I'm hoping for more balancing and AI changes, and knowing stardock, they'll get around to it... eventually (with additional expansions and such probably).

 As it is, I'm just playing this game for now, but as soon as Rome 2: Total War and Age of Wonders 3 come out (I think they're August and October 2013?) this game is probably off my PC permanently, unless there are some massive AI and balancing changes.

It's was fun figuring out the game and how to play it, but once you do, there's no challenge to it whatsoever, which makes it boring.

This is playing the game without ever loading saves (I now have autosaves turned off due to its bugs).  If I lose a battle, I lose it, not that I ever lose battles anymore (I did the first few playthroughs, but it's easy to figure out how strong/weak the enemy is after getting some experience in the game).

no worries people, the frog has said that he can go ahead with new ai stuff now that people are chatting about how easy it is and putting videos up on how they stomped the computer. Now you know who to blame when the ai does it to you after the next update or so.

next patch: I predict daggers to be op. and the bludgeon special to get hit with the nerf bat.

you complain that the game is too easy when you reload every lost battle? dude that has to be one of the dumbest complaints i have ever read on the internet. of course the game is too easy when you cheat. how could an AI ever deal with a player who just reloads after losing?

Totally agree.  Makes me think the OP is trolling or just not disciplined enough to keep himself from always taking the easy way out.

I think there is a widely different meaning of challenge to people who play this game. I have never heard of save/loading as a legitimate strategy, it is something only available to the human player and it disables many mechanics that make the game difficult. There are also a lot of overpowered racial abilities that if maximized amount to an absurd advantage, but to the vast majority of players they are just a fun advantage they don't ever maximize. This game pleases the many at the expense of the few in many respects.

I still think the best way to solve challenge issues is to have a world vs players/AI mode. It is practically already possible with some simple adjustments, it could be suped up to a full-blooded expansion feature with some care. There was a mod (Master's Affliction) that apparently did it well but has not been updated for LH (I never played it for FE). Since the difficulty of the world can be adjusted to any magnitude imaginable, and there is not a pretense that the world is "playing" like the player, it is a mode that can satisfy everyone (and it is not just people looking for a challenge who could be hooked).